‘How are you feeling?’ asks carer Julia (Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez) of her charge, Evelyn (Dawn Ford) at the beginning of Adam O’Brien‘s Bury the Devil (Canada, USA/ 2026/ 86 mins). ‘Like Hell.’ is the response. That is rather understating the case in this ambitious ambitious that attempts to do for possession movies what The Silent House did for haunted house movies; that is, by employing the Rope-style illusion of a single take. Julia is beginning a stint as a home carer for dementia sufferer Evelyn. When Evelyn begins to act oddly Julia puts it, reasonably, down to her illness. But then Evelyn’s ex-husband arrives clutching a rosary and intent on retrieving a small statuette from the house.

There is plenty of potential in Bury the Dead. It’s fluidly shot, and makes use of every square inch of its single location; a large, remote house full of eccentric decor and eerie paintings. It’s unfortunately hampered by its own construction. While it’s lengthy takes are elaborately choreographed, there is a general lack of suspence that would normally be generated by judicious editing. There is also the odd fluffed line and, most fundamentally for, the creepy old woman trope is used to no great effect. Such a novel approach to a standard marrative should be applauded, but it’s too lacking in other areas. 2/5

No applause should be reserved for Howard J. Ford‘s Bone Keeper (UK/ 2026/ 90 mins), not least for its self-admitted use of generative AI. Even putting that to one side, it’s a pretty worthless affair. A group of friends venture into a labyrinthine cave system trying to find the wherabouts of the mother of Olivia (Sarah Alexandra Marks). Olivia’s grandfather also went missing in the same caves decades earlier. She believes that her missing family are the victims of a vicious alien creature.

Even by cliched horror standards, Ford’s protagonists are thinly written idiots who largely deserve everything that they get. This doesn’t necessarily preclude enjoyment, but the lack of characterisation is compounded by awful dialogue that no amount of brio from the cast can overcome. It’s an almost breathtakingly shoddy effort, and lacks all of the charm that made Ford’s previous FrightFest movie, The Ledge, such a fun time. If you’re going to pit a group of hapless spelunkers against bloodthirsty monsters, there’s already one peerless classic to contend with. And this is no The Descent. It’s not even decent. 1/5

As with last year’s FrightFest, it takes an affectionate, beautifully-constructed documentary about the making of a much-maligned sequel to raise the spirits. This year it’s David Kittredge‘s Boorman and the Devil (USA/ 2025/ 112 mins), about the career of the visionary John Boorman and the exhaustive, exhausting, and thankless efforts to bring Exorcist II: The Heretic to the screen. Filled with entertaining, and sometime scurriously canded interviews from the man himself, co-stars like Linda Blair, the late, great Louise Fletcher, and many of the crew, it’s a detailed and surprisingly poignant story of the film that didn’t merely derail Boorman’s career for years, but almost killed him.

Beside the embarrassment of behind-the-scenes riches, some of the crazier tales are embellished with simple but effective, rather amusing animations. These nicely provide illustration for some of the particpants who are no longer with us. Many of these involve the unruly Richard Burton, who takes an iconoclastic wee kick in the posthumous knackers here. Particularly good is the revelation that he would habitually fake bouts of diarrhea to get out of script read throughs. Boorman and the Devil isn’t just a fantastic documentary that invites reappraisal of The Exorcist II, but a clear-eyed assessment of the career of a great filmmaker, who is thankfully as sharp and witty in his ’90s as ever. 5/5

It’s unclear just how well The Restoration of Grayson Manor (Glenn McQuaid/ Ireland/ 2025/ 90 mins) will play on a solo viewing, but with a packed festival audience, it goes like gangbusters. Plonked squarely in the comedy side of comedy horror, it’s a deranged mash-up of gothic location, camp comedy, and mad scientist sci-fi that ends up like a potty-mouthed version of The Addams Family. This is a good thing. When diffident heir Boyd Grayson (Chris Colfer) brings one-night-stand John (Matthew McMahon) back to his stately pad to taunt family matriarch and ‘homophobic cunt’ Jacqueline (a gloriously acidic Alice Krige) it ends in a bizarre accident that severs his hands. Jacqueline, obsessed with the Grayson lineage, employs the services of shady doctor Tannock (Daniel Adegboyega) to test his new nanotech-driven neuro-prosthetics on her maimed son. Then things get weird.

The Restoration at Grayson Manor is very much a film that throws everything at the wall to see what sticks. That everything includes a sub-plot involving purloined semen, which gives a sense of the mode in which this farcical slice of Grand Guignol is operating. It is also stuff to the gills with loving nods to films from The Hands of Orlac, Eyes Without a Face, Frankenstein, to Evil Dead, and many others, filtering them through a queer lens. It’s undoubtedly a little scattershot, but it’s relentless, almost exhausting fun that doesn’t just boast a wonderful dueling mother/ son partnership, but makes every supporting character distinctive and memorable. Ideal festival fodder. 4/5

All films screened as part of Glasgow FrightFest, part of Glasgow Film Festival